I also wonder how well the tech will evolve dealing with, say, Boston drivers during a snowstorm on a road barely wide enough for two lanes, marked as one, where the cars simply fit in.

There are roads around Boston that are marked as one lane with signs telling you too form two, if you happen to even notice the sign.

These are not intractable problems, but there are a lot of things to work out still.

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Well, yeah. We have roads that are stupid, and sometimes illegal. The current batch of "driverless" cars will just simply refuse to drive in those situations. Which is what most humans probably should do as well. I really wonder how they respond to signals from school crossing guards. Sometimes those hand signals are pretty non-standard, and ya wonder if they're telling you to stop or if they're just waving at you.

But first we need to figure out legally the licensing requirement to "operate" such a vehicle and what that even means.

Agree on the mandates.

I also wonder how well the tech will evolve dealing with, say, Boston drivers during a snowstorm on a road barely wide enough for two lanes, marked as one, where the cars simply fit in.

There are roads around Boston that are marked as one lane with signs telling you too form two, if you happen to even notice the sign.

These are not intractable problems, but there are a lot of things to work out still.

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All excellent points. While the tech inside this car was amazing, it was abundantly clear that this is still very early and there are certain things they won't allow them to do yet. Left turn at a light - Yes. Merge into the left turn lane where there is not a light - not yet. They drop you off across the street lol. Over time they will become more and more aware of situations and have intelligence to make decisions, and that's when it's going to get really creepy. Lets hope they institutionalize the '3 rules'

The thing is loaded with sensors, cameras, LiDAR etc. There's a tablet on the headrest that shows some of the imaging the car sees. It recognizes people, barricades, traffic signs and signals and keeps track of every moving object within a few hundred feet of the vehicle.

Skynet is coming, let's just hope it's much more benevolent than it was in Terminator.

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Unfortunately it'll be much less benevolent. The coming of 5G and the internet of things is 1984 on steroids. George Orwell would be more than spinning in his grave.

Well, yeah. We have roads that are stupid, and sometimes illegal. The current batch of "driverless" cars will just simply refuse to drive in those situations. Which is what most humans probably should do as well. I really wonder how they respond to signals from school crossing guards. Sometimes those hand signals are pretty non-standard, and ya wonder if they're telling you to stop or if they're just waving at you.

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I'm not sure I agree. Driving is as much a social activity wherein drivers interact. Seeing different cultural driving patterns even just within the US makes that clear to me. Having lived overseas where they make Boston drivers look like they're from Mayberry makes it even clearer. Turning driving into a straight-up rules-based approach with human/social being on the road at the same time will strain things for some time until either both sides adapt or one gets banned.

You’re gonna run into the same problem arms manufacturers run into, if someone uses your gun to shoot someone is it your fault ? I don’t think so but some people do. So if your company’s robocar gets used in a manner it wasn’t intended is it the company’s fault ? Is it Fenders fault if Keef whacks some stage crasher with his telecaster ? I don’t think so !

I'm not sure I agree. Driving is as much a social activity wherein drivers interact. Seeing different cultural driving patterns even just within the US makes that clear to me. Having lived overseas where they make Boston drivers look like they're from Mayberry makes it even clearer. Turning driving into a straight-up rules-based approach with human/social being on the road at the same time will strain things for some time until either both sides adapt or one gets banned.

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What I'm saying is that people drive in really complicated situations, in which the rules are often in conflict with each other--and sometimes it would be smarter to just stay home. In those situations the driverless car will either sit and wait (potentially forever) or it will require a human take over driving.

People drive in places where they themselves can't detect a road. And people drive the ice road in Alaska in blizzard conditions, and people drive the Andes "death road." Some of those places, I wouldn't trust any damn robot with MY life. Not that I'd be comfortable riding with a human driver either--if I'm driving somewhere risky and stupid, I don't trust anyone to do a better job than I can do myself.

Frankly, some of those places a robot would have the advantage. LIDAR? So it can see through things that people can't see through? See through blowing snow, see through snowdrifts? See through jungle foliage, or through driving rain? See through the ice you're driving on, to know how thick it is? Measure exactly how wide the space between the abyss and the cliff wall is, or back up half a mile to the nearest place that's wide enough for oncoming traffic to pass? To measure how deep the water is, that you have to drive through? Or how swift the current? Advantage: machine--if it's designed to be able to do that. A driverless car designed for the (relatively) tame streets of Chandler AZ might not be up for every kind of road condition on earth.

And yet, nobody complains as they buckle in to their airline seat...I wonder how many know what percent of their flight is actually done by the flight crew?
You'd be surprised.
There used to be a running joke in the industry regarding "autoland". Now it's not a joke.

I'm looking forward to AI tech reducing the need for human drivers in congested urban areas and allowing people to get around better. Not only will it allow the old or disabled to be more autonomous, but it will also make commuting much more tolerable. I would have killed for a self driving car back when I was commuting and hour each way every day. That would have been two more useful hours every day to read, watch TV, play games, or even practice guitar.

And I don't see how this equates to a loss of freedom at all. Back when Spielberg made the movie Minority Report, he had a big meeting with all the leading tech leaders and futurists across a number of industries to try to accurately determine where tech would be 50 from that time. So naturally the movie included self driving cars, but an interesting thing happened when Tom Cruise left the city -- a steering wheel popped up and he started driving it like normal.

For those concerned about robotic future...
Too late...
Autonomous vehicle are not The best and yet are a better answer...
Madison avenue coaxes us to drive motor vehicles in an unlawfully fashion...
Madison avenue coaxes us to drive motor vehicles in a manner approaching rubbing one out...

The majority of us have been taught what, not how to think...
It is impossible to govern a populous that knows how to think....

I have a 2019 Civic and it has a bunch of tech that will partially drive the car for you. Some of it I have found downright dangerous and have turned it off. Twice I have had the car slam on the brakes to avoid what it thought was a pending collision. One time it was a car pulling off the road in front of me and my brakes slammed on as I drove past where it turned off. Another time I was changing lanes in a tight situation getting off a highway into an acceleration/deceleration lane. Thankfully nobody was behind me in either case. The time on the highway scared the hell out of me.

I also had the car slam on the brakes when it thought I was drifting out of my lane. It was a construction zone where they have painted over the old lines and put new ones down.

The car also claims it can keep you in your lane when using cruise control. I experimented with it one time and it is FAR from reliable. Who would trust that anyway?

The auto dimming headlights are OK sometimes. The adaptive cruise control is really nice. The rest of it all gets turned off.

Not currently a fan of software-driven cars. Perhaps I've worked at too many software companies. Who's responsible on the road when bad things happen? The software company, the car manufacturer, the owner? The driving environment is sufficiently complex that I imagine there are still a huge number of edge cases that software designers are still dealing with. How hackable are they? Is the software/hardware infrastructure sufficiently secure given all the other hacking that's making the news these days? I have my doubts. Autonomous vehicles are likely to be networked to each other down the road, amplifying this risk. Finally, as cars become autonomous and networked, will authorities start limiting where human-driven cars can go and even track movement? What are the implications for our freedom of movement? It's not that these things can't be dealt with, but I think we're a long way from figuring them out still.

Also, I actually enjoy driving.

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Also, who is responsible for writing the algorithms that govern the decisions the car is making? What ethical / legal accountability do they have?